Rules
Job search: what to keep and what to drop
A job search guide built on sources: where openings come from, reading a posting for what it is, running the search as a pipeline, and the rules protecting you.
Most job searches are run on the wrong information. Not too little of it: the wrong kind. People know a great deal about the posting and almost nothing about the employer, the team, or how the vacancy came to exist. A search built on the posting alone is a search built on the least reliable document in the process.
This guide is about the sources. Which ones tell you what, which ones lie by omission, and how to run a search that checks before it commits.
What to keep
- A posting is a wish list written by someone who may not be the hiring manager. Read it for shape, not for requirements.
- The most useful information comes from sources the posting does not link to: the employer's own record, its recent departures, and the person who will manage you.
- Run the search as a pipeline with stages, so that you can see where it is failing and fix that stage rather than trying harder at all of them.
What to drop
- The requirements list as a gate.Drop everything in it that a system cannot check. A license, a right to work or a specific qualification is a real gate; the rest is a preference, however firmly it is phrased.
- The public posting as your main channel.It has the worst odds of the four routes. Use it as a map of who is hiring, not as the route you pour your effort into.
- The recruiter as a source on the job itself.The recruiter works for the employer. The person who will manage you is the source on what the role is really like.
- A long-open posting read at face value.Drop the assumption that it is still open, or open on the terms described.
- Anyone who charges you to find work.A recruiter paid by the employer costs you nothing to talk to; one who asks you for money is not a recruiter.
Where openings come from
An opening reaches you by one of four routes, and the route changes the odds.
Four routes to an opening
Public posting
- Who else applies
- Everyone
- What it tells you
- Role exists
- Odds
- Worst
Referral
- Who else applies
- Few
- What it tells you
- Team is real
- Odds
- Better
Recruiter approach
- Who else applies
- A shortlist
- What it tells you
- Employer is paying
- Odds
- Better
Direct approach
- Who else applies
- Nobody
- What it tells you
- Unadvertised need
- Odds
- Best
What it looks like
- Public posting
- A board, the employer's site, a listing
- Referral
- Someone inside puts your name forward
- Recruiter approach
- An agency or in-house recruiter contacts you
- Direct approach
- You contact an employer with no posting
Who else is applying
- Public posting
- Everyone
- Referral
- Few
- Recruiter approach
- A shortlist
- Direct approach
- Nobody
What it tells you
- Public posting
- Little beyond the fact that the role exists
- Referral
- The team is real and someone thinks you fit
- Recruiter approach
- The employer is paying to fill it, which usually means it matters
- Direct approach
- Whether they have a need they have not yet advertised
The public route has the worst odds and consumes most of most people's effort. The other three are where searches get filled. That is not an argument for ignoring postings; it is an argument for using them as a map of who is hiring and then approaching through a better route.
Reading a posting for what it is
A posting is assembled from a template, a previous version of the same role, and a list of wishes from whoever will manage the hire. It is rarely written by the hiring manager and rarely describes the job as it will actually be.
How to read a posting
- Reporting line and team
- First three responsibilities
- Requirements split in two
- Pay statement, if any
- How long it has been open
Read it in this order:
- The reporting line and the team.The most reliable part, because it comes from the organization chart rather than from anyone's hopes.
- The first three responsibilities.These are usually the ones the manager actually cares about. The rest of the list is inherited.
- The requirements, split in two.Anything a system can check (a license, a right to work, a specific qualification) is a real gate. Everything else is a preference, however firmly it is phrased, and the list has usually been copied forward from a previous posting without anyone re-examining it.
- The pay statement, if any.Where employers are required or choose to publish a range, it tells you the level the role has been placed at. Where they do not, the absence is a question for the first conversation.
- How long it has been open.A role open for a long time is either hard to fill, badly scoped, or not really open. All three are worth knowing before you invest in it.
The sources that actually matter
The employer's own record. Annual reports, regulatory filings, public accounts, press releases and the careers page taken together tell you whether the organization is growing, shrinking or reorganizing, and a vacancy means something different in each case. Ten minutes here is worth more than an hour reading the posting again. A business development job posting hides the same gaps, so decode it before you apply.
Sources worth checking
- Employer's own record
- Its recent departures
- Its recent arrivals
- The person who will manage you
- The posting history
Its recent departures. People who left in the last year or two are the most informative source available and the least used. Most will talk if asked politely and specifically. Ask why the role is open and what they would want to know before taking it.
Its recent arrivals. People hired into similar roles recently know what the process is like, what the offer looked like in structure, and what the first months were. Ask what surprised them.
The person who will manage you. Not the recruiter. The hiring manager's own priorities, style and standing in the organization determine more about your experience of the job than anything in the posting. Getting time with them before an offer is normal to ask for and informative if refused.
The posting history. Whether the same role has been advertised before, and how often. Repeated postings for the same seat are a signal about the seat.
None of this requires access or contacts you do not have. It requires deciding that the posting is not enough and spending the time.
One more source is worth reading once, not per application. The Standard Occupational Classification, maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is broader and more stable than any employer's job titles.
Read the structure of the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification to find the other names your work goes by, the cheapest way to widen a job search stalled on one keyword. The Bureau of Labor Statistics site refuses an automated request while loading normally in a browser.
Running the search as a pipeline
A search has stages: targets identified, approaches made, first conversations, interviews, offers. Each stage converts into the next at some rate, and a search that is not working is failing at one specific stage. Finding out which one is the only way to fix it.
Keep a simple record with one row per opportunity: the employer, the route, the stage it is at, the date of the last contact, and the next action. Update it weekly. After a few weeks the record will show you where things stop.
Where your search is failing
Many targets, few approaches?
You are researching, not applying
Check the next stage
Trying harder across the whole pipeline when only one stage is broken is the most common way a search burns out.
The rules that protect you
A job search is a moment when people are eager, exposed and dealing with strangers, and that combination attracts fraud. The rules below are not about caution in general. They are about specific patterns.
Fraud protection rules
- A real employer never asks you to pay
- No bank details before a written offer
- A real recruiter is paid by the employer
- A real offer survives being checked
- Urgency is a tell
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission publishes current guidance on employment fraud, and its job scams page describes the patterns it is currently seeing. Read it once before starting a job search; the patterns change and the page is kept up to date in a way this one cannot be.
What this site can and cannot tell you
This site does not publish pay or employment figures, and it does not rank employers. What it does is explain how each function is measured and paid so that you can read a posting for what it hides.
The guides to operations, business development, administration, management and consulting each set out what to ask about a role in that function before accepting it. Read the one for the function you are targeting before your first conversation, because the questions in it are the ones a posting will not answer.
Common questions
Should I apply for roles where I do not meet all the requirements?
Split the requirements into gates and preferences as above. If you clear the gates, apply. The preferences list is a description of an ideal candidate who rarely exists.
How many applications should I be making?
The wrong measure. Count approaches by route instead, and weight toward referral and direct approaches, which convert far better than public applications. A search with fewer, better-routed approaches usually finishes sooner.
Is it worth using a recruiter?
For roles where employers pay agencies to search, yes, and you do not choose: the recruiter finds you. For other roles, a recruiter who approaches you unprompted and is paid by the employer costs you nothing to talk to. One who asks you for money is not a recruiter.
How do I find out why a role is open?
Ask, in the first conversation. Then check the answer against the employer's record and, if you can, against someone who left recently. The three sources agreeing is a good sign. The three sources disagreeing is the more useful finding.
What if I cannot find anything about the employer?
A small or new organization may have little public record, which is not itself a warning. An organization that claims to be large and established and has no record is a different matter. Check the business registry for your jurisdiction — in the United States, your state's Secretary of State keeps the business registry — before going further.
In this guide
- Reading a posted job search salary range without getting fooledJob search salary work starts with the posted range: where it comes from, what it hides, how to compare two offers honestly, and where pay is used as bait.
- Which job search skills are hiding inside one posting list?Job search skills come in three kinds hidden in one posting list. Telling them apart, the administrative skills that shorten a search, and what transfers.
- Why does timing beat a polished resume in a job search process?Job search applications land in a process with a shape: the employer's own sequence, what the screening step is really doing, and why timing beats polish.
- Job search resume records: versions, file names, trackingA job search resume needs version control: one master, track versions, an archived sent copy, clear file names and a record of what went where and when.
- Job search interview questions: a script for two callsJob search interview questions to ask the recruiter in the screening call and the manager in the next, with why each works and how to handle a restricted one.
- Job search outlook: what a projection covers and what it cannot tell youWhat an occupational outlook is built from, where the category ends and your job begins, how to read current figures, and five questions to ask any forecast.
